Re: FC3 upgrade - X is hosed :( (LONG)

From: Jim Cornette (fc-cornette_at_insight.rr.com)
Date: 11/14/04

  • Next message: Jason Costomiris: "Re: SATA RAID" 
    Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 23:42:40 -0500
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    Mike Klinke wrote:
    > On Tuesday 09 November 2004 10:45, sz beam wrote:
    >
    >
    >>The laptop is a Sony Vaio with the i815 chipset. The Xorg log is
    >>below, I can't see anything amiss in it but most of it makes no
    >>sense to me. Apologies to those of you on dialup for this but I
    >>don't know what else to say, this is a pretty stock upgrade path
    >>and the i815 driver is loaded per normal as far as I can tell.
    >>
    >
    >
    > Most likely, anything that uses the i810 driver is going to be
    > problematic. Try some of the hints here:
    >
    > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=132267
    >
    > I use a Sony Vaio too and have had good results using 16bit,
    > (thousands of colors) with FC3T3, but this seems to vary with the
    > version of graphics controller you're using.
    >
    > Regards, Mike Klinke
    >

    Just to add some experience and some history regarding the breakage of
    the i810 driver. There were some changes made in xorg-x11 that related
    to the 830 cards and dual head. This caused the server to not even come
    up on the first CVS version resulting in the current release of the
    server. Later, there was a patch applied resulting from Mike's bug
    report. Code was changed to get the 810/815 video cards to work again.
    When I started the server with the patch which brought up the server
    again for the 815 cards, I experienced the refresh/lockup and hovering
    mouse over portion of screen would refresh partially that part of the
    screen.
    Resolutions that worked for me were to replace the
    /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/i810_drv.o
    file with a driver extracted from the pre-cvs release or to change my
    xorg.conf file to run at a higher resolution 1280x1024 at 24 depth.
    The later was eventually broken by various kernel versions and I just
    gave in and added Option "NoAccel" to the xorg.conf file and things ran
    acceptably.
    As Mike points out, if you run at a resolution that DRI is active, the
    refresh problem is not present. There was a bug where changing to a
    terminal via ctl-alt-Fn would kill the server and it would need to be
    restarted. Therefore, it seems that DRI has a problem when the screen
    transitions from graphics to text, it just bails out.
    Now, I like higher resolutions and deeper color depth. This runs on the
    815 card with no DRI.

    However, I also have experience on a Dell computer with an Intel 865G
    video card. This card runs with DRI at higher resolutions and deeper
    color with no problem. The changes in xorg-x11 actually resolved a
    problem with unpredictable crashes of the server which left a residual
    image of whatever was on the screen before the the X server dies out.
    The residual leftover on the screen problem disappeared and the server
    has not crashed with overnight tested with all of the screensavers cycling.

    Lets just say that DRM and AGP might be faulty at the kernel level. It
    might also be that the driver might need to be split up to prevent
    breakage with the newer cards that also use this i810 driver having
    changes, which break or introduce limiting options, which need to be
    applied to the xorg.conf to hide this horrible refresh problem.

    Basically, the 810/815 are very effected by same driver and changes to
    improve 830 and above video cards.
    865G cards work a lot better and have outlived the xscreensaver daemon
    during my tests with this driver.

    We need this fixed and the problem is showing up with other releases
    also. Input regarding all of the different video cards needs to be found
    out and which cards act which way. 810/815/830/845/865/9xx and others.
    Also information regarding how certain kernels effect this problem or if
    the kernel has no effect on th problem.

    Sorry Mike for replying to your post and referencing your prior
    findings. Thanks for pointing out the 24 depth in my xorg.conf file
    during the testing phase. Also, does changing to a terminal still cause
    your server to crash when using DRI.

    Jim 

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